Gifts Totaling $725,000 from the Rauch Foundation Aim to Attract Talented Students and Post-Doctoral Fellows to TC

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Nancy Douzinas

The Rauch Foundation,
a Long Island-based family foundation, has made two gifts to Teachers College
totaling $725,000 to support the recruitment of outstanding scholars and future
teachers who are committed to improving outcomes for children and families from
high-need communities.

“From its inception 125 years ago, Teachers College has
focused on preparing the best people to work with children and families and on
conducting critical research on educational policy issues,” says Nancy Rauch
Douzinas, President of the Rauch Foundation and a member of Teachers College’s
Board of Trustees since 2010. “That dovetails with the mission of the Rauch
Foundation, which invests in ideas and organizations that spark and sustain
systemic change in our communities – for children and families, among other
areas of focus.”

Reaching High-Need
Schools

A $500,000 gift honoring
Ms. Douzinas’s mother, the late Ruth Treiber Rauch, a Teachers College alumna, creates
the Ruth Treiber Rauch Endowed Scholarship Fund, which will provide the College
with a perpetual source of support to make a TC education more affordable for
outstanding students who want to teach in high-need New York City public
secondary schools.

The Ruth Treiber
Rauch Scholarship Fund will enable TC to offer up to two scholarships annually
of as much as $12,500 each for students pursuing master’s degrees and teacher
certification for secondary school. The recipients will work in high-need
schools after leaving TC.

Teachers College has
made it a priority to ease the debt burden of students who want to work in
high-need areas.

“We are grateful for
every opportunity that allows us to ensure that the neediest students will get
the best teachers,” says Ruth Vinz, the Enid & Lester Morse Chair in
Teacher Education, and Professor in English Education. “This gift will not only
support two TC students, it will also contribute to the learning and
intellectual lives of the many young people they teach.”

“At a time when our
students are taking on a very heavy debt load to study in university-based
teacher education programs, this scholarship will provide critical support for
those who aspire to teach in high-need schools,” adds Marjorie Siegel,
Professor of Education and Chair of TC’s Department of Curriculum and Teaching.

O. Roger Anderson,
Professor of Natural Sciences and Chair of TC’s Department of Math, Science
& Technology, applauded the Rauch Foundation for including support of
preservice teachers in the STEM (science, technology, math and engineering)
fields in its gift.

“Major gifts to
support graduate teacher education in STEM fields such as this may help us
attract the best students who prefer to teach, but who sometimes find other
professional options more attractive due to better scholarship support,”
Anderson says. “This will help us to keep TC on the forefront of STEM
teacher education.”

Supporting a Post-Doctoral Fellow at
the National Center for Children and Families

A $225,000 grant from
the Rauch Foundation will support a Post-Doctoral Fellow for three years at
TC’s National Center for Children and Families (NCCF).

“We are thrilled to
receive this funding,” says Sharon Lynn Kagan, TC’s Virginia and Leonard Marx
Professor of Early Childhood and Family Policy, and Co-director of NCCF.
“Post-doctoral positions are quite coveted and attract the top scholars in the
field.”

The Rauch Foundation produces
the Long Island Index, which each year provides data to measure challenges,
conduct comparisons with other suburban regions and adapt best practices. The
Foundation previously funded a study by the National Center for Children and
Families of child care and early education services on Long Island. The
Post-Doctoral Fellow’s efforts will focus on evaluating and improving the
distribution of services to young children in New York City and New York State.

“The Foundation seeks
to cultivate new leaders in the field of early childhood and to support more
research, data-collection and analysis of New York's early childhood system and
the impact it is having on the most vulnerable children and families,” Douzinas
said. “Early childhood
education is a key piece of the education system, preparing children for school
that leads to future success. We ultimately want more children to receive
quality early learning opportunities, and this post-doctoral fellowship will
help NCCF continue to produce high-quality and respected research that furthers
our goals.”

NCCF conducts
interdisciplinary research to improve policy and practices in early childhood
education programs and schooling that affect the well-being of children and
families in the United States and around the world.

The Rauch Foundation
has supported work by several TC faculty members, including Kagan, Jeanne
Brooks-Gunn (Co-Director of the National Center for Children and Families) Amy
Stuart Wells, Douglas Ready and Michael Rebell.